Faire vivre ou laisser mourir à la limite de la viabilité fœtale, une perspective pour penser les inégalités sociales de santé

Deciding to resuscitate a newborn at the limits of viability assumes to integrate in the decision making process clinical factors such as gestational age at birth, neonatal weight, the existence of an infectious context or the non-realization of fetal lung maturation; all these elements having value as prognostic factors. Other factors are however also associated with increased risk for both neonatal and long-term outcomes. A socially deprived parental context is one of them as it is associated with an increased risk of unfavorable outcome. We propose, in this paper, a reflection on the implicit intervention of the social context in neonatal resuscitation decision making process and its consequences in terms of decision's relevancy and social inequalities in health.